Tag Archives: Oil stabilization

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Oil conditioning, Oil stabilization

New Death Count Projections for Bakken Oil Train Disasters?

Repost from The Coalition for Bakken Crude Oil Stabilization

New Death Count Projections for Bakken Oil Train Disasters?

By Ron Schalow, January 13, 2015
The Coalition for Bakken Crude Oil Stabilization
Facebook: The Coalition for Bakken Crude Oil Stabilization

Firefighters, Emergency Personnel, Lawmakers, and Media:

Last June (2014), North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple called disaster agencies and emergency personnel together for a “tabletop exercise” to practice a response to a possible Bakken oil train derailment, and the subsequent explosions. They estimated there would be more than 60 deaths if such an incident occurred in Bismarck, ND (65,000 pop.) or Fargo, ND (110,000 pop.).
http://www.prairiebizmag.com/event/article/id/19629/
http://news.prairiepublic.org/…/inside-energy-making-bakken…

I don’t know the times, locations, or other variables, in the exercise calculations, but I can envision places in Bismarck and Fargo where the death count might be zero at certain times of the day. I could also think of cases, especially in downtown Fargo, when thousands would be in the blast zone.

There were 47 deaths in Lac-Megantic (6,000 pop.) after a Bakken oil train derailed on July 6, 2013. Dozens of downtown buildings were incinerated, but due to the late hour, most of the people who died were assembled at one place of business.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search…

Then, on December 9th, 2014, all three North Dakota Industrial Commission members signed Order No. 25417.
http://www.nd.gov/ndic/ic-press/dmr-order25417.pdf

“This order will bring every barrel of Bakken crude within standards to improve the safety of oil for transport,” said Governor Jack Dalrymple, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, in a joint statement.

Considering the improved safety, North Dakota officials should have updated projections of fatalities for Fargo and Bismarck. They would know the June variables and the change in composition of the contents of the tanker cars, due to the new Order. You could extrapolate the information to predict the deaths and damage for your community.

What’s the new number for casualties? These people should know…

North Dakota Industrial Commission
701-328-3722
ndicinfo@nd.gov

Governor Dalrymple’s Chief of Staff
Ron Rauschenberger
701-328-2222
rrausche@nd.gov

Governor Dalrymple’s Director and Policy Advisor
Jeff Zent
701-328-2424
jlzent@nd.gov

Lynn D. Helms, Director
Department of Mineral Resources
701-328-8020
lhelms@nd.gov

Oil and Gas Division
701-328-8020
oilandgasinfo@nd.gov

North Dakota Department of Emergency Services
701-328-8100
nddes@nd.gov

Cass County (Fargo) Emergency Management
Dave Rogness
701-476-4065
rognessd@casscountynd.gov

Fargo Fire Department
Steve Dirksen Fire Chief
701-241-1540
sdirksen@cityoffargo.com

Burleigh County (Bismarck) Emergency Management and Homeland Security
Mary H. Senger Emergency Manager
701-222-6727
msenger@nd.gov

Bismarck Emergency Management Division
Gary Stockert Emergency Manager
701-221-6804
gstockert@bismarcknd.gov

Bismarck Fire Department
Joel Boespflug Chief
jboespfl@bismarcknd.gov

Casselton ND, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Oil conditioning, Oil stabilization

NPR: Casselton, one year later

Repost from National Public Radio (NPR)
[Editor: This NPR report mentions that recent new North Dakota regulations require “conditioning” the oil.  Note that the new rules fall short of calling for “stabilization” of the oil.  See Ron Schalow’s comment, including “This conditioning lowers the ignition temperature of crude oil—but not by much. It leaves in solution most of the culprit gases, including butane and propane….The only solution for safety is stabilization, which evaporates and re-liquefies nearly all of the petroleum gases for separate delivery to refiners. Stabilization is voluntarily and uniformly practiced in the Eagle Ford formation in Texas…” – RS]

Fiery Accident Spurs Safer Rail Transport For Crude Oil

Morning Edition, December 30, 2014

It’s been one year since an oil train derailment outside Casselton, N.D. Since then, state and federal regulators have taken steps to make it safer to transport crude by rail.

Bakken Crude, DOT-111, Fracking, Oil conditioning, Oil producers, Oil stabilization, State regulation, Tank car retirement, Train braking systems, Train speed, Volatile gases

Maclean’s: So it turns out Bakken oil is explosive after all

Repost from Maclean’s Magazine

So it turns out Bakken oil is explosive after all

Producers in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields have been told to make crude is safer before being shipped by rail
By Chris Sorensen, December 10, 2014

Oil TrainsAfter years of insisting oil sucked from North Dakota’s Bakken shale wasn’t inherently dangerous, producers have been ordered to purge the light, sweet crude of highly flammable substances before loading it on railcars and shipping it through towns and cities across the continent.

State regulators said this week that the region’s crude will first need to be treated, using heat or pressure, to remove more volatile liquids and gases. The idea, according to North Dakota’s Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms, wasn’t to render the oil incapable of being ignited, but merely more stable in preparation for transport.

It’s the latest regulatory response to a frightening series of fiery train crashes that stretches back to the summer of 2013. That’s when a runaway train laden with Bakken crude jumped the tracks in Lac-Mégantic, Que., and killed 47 people in a giant fireball. In the accident’s immediate aftermath, many experts struggled to understand how a train full of crude oil could ignite so quickly and violently. It had never happened before.

Subsequent studies have shown that Bakken crude, squeezed from shale rock under high pressure through a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” can indeed have a high gas content and vapour pressure, as well as lower flash and boiling points. However, there remains disagreement about whether the levels are unusual for oil extracted from shale, and whether the classifications for shipping it should be changed.

Still, with more than one million barrels of oil being moved by rail from the region each day, regulators have decided to err on the side of caution and implement additional safety measures. For producers, that means buying new equipment that can boil off propane, butane and other volatile natural gases. Under the new rules, the Bakken crude will not be allowed to have a vapour pressure greater than 13.7 lb. per square inch, about the same as for standard automobile gasoline. Regulators estimate that about 80 per cent of Bakken oil already meets these requirements.

The industry isn’t pleased. It continues to argue that Bakken oil is no more dangerous than other forms of light, sweet crude, and is, therefore, being unfairly singled out. It has also warned that removing volatile liquids and gasses from Bakken crude would result in the creation of a highly concentrated, highly volatile product that would still have to be shipped by rail—not to mention additional greenhouse-gas emissions. It goes without saying that meeting the new rules will also cost producers money—at a time when oil prices are falling.

In the meantime, regulators on both sides of the border are taking steps to boost rail safety by focusing on lower speed limits, new brake requirements and plans to phase out older, puncture-prone oil tank cars. Earlier this year, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said Canada would be “leading the continent” on the phase-out of older DOT-111 tank cars, which have been linked to fiery crashes going back 25 years. There are about 65,000 of the cars in service in North America, about a third of which can be found in Canada.

Bakken Crude, Oil conditioning, Oil stabilization, State regulation, Volatility

Safety rules on oil trains burn critics

Repost from The Times Union, Albany NY

Safety rules on oil trains burn critics

Most N.D. loads to Albany now under new volatility limits
By Brian Nearing, December 10, 2014
FILE - This Nov. 6, 2013 file photo shows a warning placard on a tank car carrying crude oil near a loading terminal in Trenton, N.D. Thousands of older rail tank cars that carry crude oil would be phased out within two years under regulations proposed in response to a series of fiery train crashes over the past year. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the government's testing of crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana shows the oil is on the high end of a range of volatility compared with other crude oils, meaning it's more likely to ignite if spilled. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File) ORG XMIT: WX101 ORG XMIT: MER2014082212045022 Photo: Matthew Brown / AP
FILE – This Nov. 6, 2013 file photo shows a warning placard on a tank car carrying crude oil near a loading terminal in Trenton, N.D. Thousands of older rail tank cars that carry crude oil would be phased out within two years under regulations proposed in response to a series of fiery train crashes over the past year. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the government’s testing of crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana shows the oil is on the high end of a range of volatility compared with other crude oils, meaning it’s more likely to ignite if spilled. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

New safety rules on Bakken crude oil shipments imposed by North Dakota will not affect about 80 percent of oil arriving daily on massive tanker trains at the Port of Albany. Some oil opponents in the Capital Region are criticizing the limit as toothless.

Amid opposition from oil companies, the North Dakota Industrial Commission set a limit late Tuesday that is supposed to reduce the volatility of Bakken crude — or potential explosiveness — before it can be shipped out of state on trains. Officials in New York and other states along the routes of oil trains had been pushing for a limit in after major accidents in Canada, and states including Alabama and Pennsylvania.

The new North Dakota standard is well above volatility found in Bakken crude by Canadian safety officials after 47 people were killed in a massive explosion and fire when a crude oil train derailed in Quebec in July 2013.

North Dakota’s new measure was praised as “aggressive” in a joint news release by state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens and Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald.

“Reducing the volatility of Bakken crude at the source protects public health, protects the environment and provides an additional safeguard for New Yorkers and communities across the country,” according to the prepared statement. Attempts to obtain further comment Wednesday from DEC were not successful.

“This does not really provide much of a margin of safety for the public. It still does not address the (Bakken) flammability issue,” said Chris Amato, a staff attorney with Earthjustice, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental legal group and DEC deputy commissioner for natural resources from 2007 to 2011.

In October, Amato’s group filed a petition with DEC claiming the state has the power to immediately ban the most common type of oil tanker rail cars — called DOT-111s — from entering the port loaded with flammable Bakken oil. DEC disagreed that it had the power to take such a step, which would have made Albany the first place in the country to bar the aging tankers, which in derailments have been prone to rupture, leading to fires and explosions.

Amato called the North Dakota volatility standard “better than nothing,” adding that DEC “has its head in the sand on all crude-by-rail issues.”

“The new rule has no effect, zero,” said Sandy Steubing, a spokeswoman for the group People of Albany United for Safe Energy, which wants crude oil shipments into Albany halted. “It is like setting a speed limit of 100 miles an hour and saying we will catch the cars going 120,” she said. “I don’t know if North Dakota just did this for show.”

Assemblyman Phil Steck of Colonie and Albany County Executive Dan McCoy also questioned the effectiveness of the measure.

“Reducing the volatility of crude oil at the source before shipping is welcome news and is something for which I have been advocating. But North Dakota hasn’t set a standard that challenges the oil industry enough,” said McCoy. And Steck, a fellow Democrat, said North Dakota also failed to require removal of hydrofracking chemicals from the Bakken, which he said makes the crude more flammable.

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said “any step that makes our community safer is a step in the right direction.”

Starting April 1, Bakken crude shipped out of the shale oil fields of North Dakota can have a vapor pressure of no more than 13.7 pounds per square inch (psi), slightly below a federal hazardous materials stability standard of 14.7 psi.

Bakken crude above this new standard would have to be treated with heat or pressure at the wells to remove its most volatile components.

North Dakota Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms has said about 80 percent of Bakken crude being shipped already falls below this standard. But he also told the Associated Press that the change would “significantly change the characteristics of crude oil that’s going into market.”

A vapor pressure rating is a measurement of how rapidly a liquid evaporates into a gas and spreads into the air, making it more volatile and prone to explosion. The Bakken crude that caused the massive fireball in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people had a psi of between 9 and 9.3, which is well below the new North Dakota safety standard.

In a report after the tragedy, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board found the Bakken crude involved was as volatile as gasoline. The volatility, combined with “large quantities of spilled crude oil, the rapid rate of release, and the oil’s … low viscosity were likely the major contributors to the large post-derailment fireball and pool fire,” the board found.

By comparison, crude oil pumped from beneath the Gulf of Mexico has a psi of about 3, making it much less likely to explode in an accident, according to figures reported this spring in the Wall Street Journal. In Texas, crude oil produced in the Eagle Ford shale formation has a psi of about 8.

According to the North Dakota Petroleum Council, the average Bakken crude has a psi of between 11.5 and 11.8, again below the new state safety standard.

The North Dakota standard is “far from a solution that the communities that are dealing with oil trains on a daily basis are looking for,” said Connor Bambrick, an analyst with Environmental Advocates of New York.